Best Russian & Central and Eastern European Private Equity Fund iTech Capital is excited and honored to have been named the Best Russian & Central and Eastern European Private Equity Fund.

The 9th edition of the Private Equity Exchange Awards was held on November 21st, at the Pavillon d'Armenonville in Paris. This gala evening gathered over 400 Private Equity key players to reward the best performers of Private Equity Funds, Limited Partners and Management Teams for their performances in the long run. Industry awards confirm the value and hard work of the entire iTech Capital team over the years of hard work. We are proud and excited to achieve the recognition.

NOV 2018

Bitfury Completes $80 Million Private Placement The Bitfury Group, the world’s leading full-service blockchain technology company, has closed an $80 million private placement. iTech Capital, an Eastern European tech specific private equity firm and historical investor in Bitfury, also took part in the placement.

Bitfury launches “Bitfury Lab” in BTU A Bitfury laboratory equipped with the most modern equipment and technologies was opened at the Business and Technology University (BTU) last Friday (21.09.18, Tbilisi Georgia) in cooperation with Bitfury Group.

A Bitfury laboratory equipped with the most modern equipment and technologies was opened at the Business and Technology University (BTU) last Friday (21.09.18, Tbilisi Georgia) in cooperation with Bitfury Group. The laboratory offers the students an opportunity to train in and study blockchain development. In addition, workshops and seminars will be held in the new space. Cooperation between Bitfury Group and Business and Technology University (BTU) began early this year after signing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
According to the representative of Bitfury in Georgia, Ephrem Urumashvili, The Business and Technology University is the most advanced and high-tech university in the region, which is the reason why Bitfury Group decided to cooperate with them. BTU provides students with innovative approaches to learning and together with Bitfury Group, the implemented project “BitfuryLab" will be a serious step towards in the education sector.
Find out more here.

MAY 2018

iTech Capital has announced the sale of a partial stake in its portfolio company TradingView delivering more than 11xMoM to its investors
iTech Capital I, L.P. invested US $3 million in the social trading solution back in 2015. Currently TradingView has more than 8 million monthly active users, and organic user base growth over the last three years has reached more than 1600%. Insight Venture Partners is leading a US $37 million primary and secondary investment in TradingView to strengthen international expansion and development of new services, delivering iTech Capital more than 11x MoM in realized and unrealized gains. Insight Venture Parters is joined by Jump Capital and DRW Ventures in the transaction.

TradingView is a social network for traders based on an online platform for technical analysis. The company was founded in 2012 and became one of the top 500 websites globally as ranked by Amazon Alexa, ahead of CNBC, Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, Reuters, The Economist, Motley Fool, Investopedia, and TechCrunch.

The main offering of TradingView is a real-time charting tool, with functionality comparable to leading global desktop platforms. With this trading platform, users receive tick-by-tick real-time data on stocks, forex, crypto and indices, and benefit from a wide range of technical analysis tools accessible directly on the platform from any device. Integrated trading is possible through brokers and the Poloniex crypto exchange. Social discovery tools enable interactive chatting and idea exchange increasing user engagement and improving user experience over traditional engines.

“At its core, TradingView produces best-in-class financial charting software, and the community of traders and idea-sharing that has organically emerged around this platform represents one of the most active and valuable social networks we've seen," said Paul Szurek, Vice President at Insight Venture Partners.

“We are glad IVP saw the strength of TradingView's capabilities and are happy to have them on board. The TradingView team is doing a great job introducing new tools and ideas to a diverse trader community. I am sure we are witnessing the rise of a unicorn club member and happy to be among one of the early investors.” says Gleb Davidyuk, iTech Capital’s Managing Partner.

APR 2018

Bitfury started working with REGA Bitfury started working with REGA to create lock-ins solutions in the field of insurance. Together, the companies plan to create a decentralized scoring platform on Exonum.

REGA, the first “crowdsurance” platform on the blockchain, has secured an investment from the Bitfury Group to continue growing its affordable, secure and decentralized alternative to insurance. In addition, REGA will sign an agreement with Bitfury to use their Exonum protocol to build a faster and cheaper decentralized scoring solution, enabling banks and insurance companies to be service providers for the platform.
“Crowdsurance,” the concept that people unite in communities to provide a guarantee of compensation for unexpected loss, is using the open-sourced and transparent qualities of blockchain to reimagine traditional insurance mechanisms. With support from investment firm, AltaIR, and a Bitfury Group, REGA will continue expanding its insurance offerings.
So far, REGA has launched three projects:
• Pet Crowdsurance;
• Travel Luggage Protection;
• Athlete protection and risk assessment.

Bitfury opens a bitcoin Mining Datacenter in Norway The datacenter will run on renewable energy, reaffirming the commitment to sustainability and innovation for the bitcoin network.

The datacenter will run on renewable energy, reaffirming the commitment to sustainability and innovation for the bitcoin network.
Bitfury is building one new datacenter offering services based on Bitfury’s unique technology. The datacenter is located with two physical sites in Mo Industrial Park in the town of Mo i Rana, the third largest town in Northern Norway.
Bitfury is investing about 274 million NOK (35 million USD) in the datacenter’s infrastructure. On average, the power usage effectiveness (PUE) in the datacenter is 1.05 or lower, making it one of the world’s most energy efficient.

You can now trade through the Poloniex Crypto Exchange on TradingView TradingView presented its users the opportunity to trade through the Poloniex crypto-exchange.

To work with Poloniex from TradingView charts the user needs to open an account on the broker's website and get the API Keys.
Users are also able to deactivate automatic saving of the chart layout now. This new setting gives you even more flexibility when working with the chart. This feature is located in the dropdown menu of the chart layout and is activated by default.

iTech Capital is announcing the first deal in the portfolio of its new fund iTech Capital II The growth equity fund iTech Capital II acquired a blocking stake in the National Legal Service AMULEX. This is the first such transaction on the Russian market, which opens up new opportunities for Russian and foreign companies to implement LegalTech solutions.

AMULEX is the leading provider of technology-enables legal services to individuals and companies in the small and medium business segment in Russia. The company combines the latest achievements in LegalTech with comprehensive client-oriented consulting. AMULEX’s partners include the country's largest banks, insurance providers, FMCGs, medical and retail companies that entrust their customers and employees with a leading provider of legal technologies.

The company's is represented in 1,840 cities and towns of Russia, serving over 1,540,000 customers. Every day the company's specialists take more than 1,500 calls in 11 time zones. In 2017 the Analytical Service of AMULEX developed the Russian Index of Legal Literacy, which is regularly used by media and the authorities. The accumulated database of customer references permits the deployment of leading big data and artificial intelligence technologies. In particular, AMULEX is developing a blockchain-based electronic document management system. Since 2013 AMULEX was recognized as the Company of the Year, received the Spears Awards three times, and, in 2017, won the prestigious HR BRAND, Effie Russia and "Innovation Time" awards.

iTech Fund II is expected to raise US$150M. The investment strategy of the new fund remains the same - it supports projects in the later stages of development in the sectors FinTech, IoT, AI, Big Data, Online Travel, SaaS, AdTech and CryptoTech in Russia and beyond. The partners of the fund are Russian and foreign private and institutional co-investors. As of today the iTech Family group includes four funds - iTech Fund I, iTech Fund II, iTechSkolkovo IT Fund and Prostor Capital with total funds under management of more than US $200m.

The iTech Fund II, LP in cooperation with the National Legal Service AMULEX are planning to introduce its own B2B platform in more than 48 companies in the mid- to large- business segment by the end of 2018, allowing organizations to take advantage of remote business, innovative legaltech solutions and telemedicine technologies.

iTech Fund II is expected to raise US$150M. The investment strategy of the new fund remains the same - it supports projects in the later stages of development in the sectors FinTech, IoT, AI, Big Data, Online Travel, SaaS, AdTech and CryptoTech in Russia and beyond. The partners of the fund are Russian and foreign private and institutional co-investors. As of today the iTech Family group includes four funds - iTech Fund I, iTech Fund II, iTechSkolkovo IT Fund and Prostor Capital with total funds under management of more than US $200m.

The iTech Fund II, LP in cooperation with the National Legal Service AMULEX are planning to introduce its own B2B platform in more than 48 companies in the mid- to large- business segment by the end of 2018, allowing organizations to take advantage of remote business, innovative legaltech solutions and telemedicine technologies." data-image="http://itcap.vc//upload/resize_cache/iblock/c21/75_75_1/itech_capital.png">

MAR 2018

Support iTech Family, vote for us at the Benzingafintechawards.com! The BZ Awards is a competition to showcase the companies with the most impressive technology, who are paving the future in financial services and capital markets.

Vote for us and support iTech to become the Best Financial Advisor at the Benzinga Global Fintech Awards 2018!

In December 2017, Bitfury and Hut 8 announced a partnership to acquire, install and operate North America’s largest bitcoin mining data centers. As for today Hut 8 Starts Trading on TSXV, Becoming One of the World’s Largest Publicly Traded Cryptocurrency Miners.
Listing on the TSXV can be a milestone for Canadian investors, who can now access the world’s largest publicly traded crypto mine, without purchasing the underlying cryptocurrency.

Bitfury Group opening its office in Russia Bitfury Group has announced the opening of its Russian office in Moscow.
The main goal of the new structure will be the sale and introduction of Exonum private blockchain platform to Russian companies and state institutions. Apart from this, it will also present a blockchain-based tool for blockchain investigations named Crystal, which may be adopted by financial institutions and law enforcement agencies. The company is planning to launch a number of joint projects in cooperation with its business-partners in Russia.

Clickky entered Inc. 5000 Clickky entered prestigious rating Inc. 5000 with an income growth rate of 600%.
Experts of the edition analyzed the revenues growth rates for 2014–2016 and showed those companies, in which this indicator grew faster than the rest.

Inc. 5000 with an income growth rate of 600%.
Experts of the edition analyzed the revenues growth rates for 2014–2016 and showed those companies, in which this indicator grew faster than the rest." data-image="http://itcap.vc//upload/resize_cache/iblock/148/75_75_1/clickky--1497443965-logo.jpeg">

FEB 2018

Forbes published 20 Most Expensive Runet Companies 2018, Aviasales is on the 11th place! Forbes published 20 Most Expensive Runet Companies 2018, Aviasales is on the 11th place! Congratulations!

Aviasales maintains a leading position in terms of attendance among Russian meta detectors in the market of passenger air travel. Attendance of the resource over the past year increased from 7 million to 10 million people, its revenue, according to estimates, increased twice. 40% more people began to look for tickets on Aviasales in 2017.

20 Most Expensive Runet Companies 2018, Aviasales is on the 11th place! Congratulations!

Aviasales maintains a leading position in terms of attendance among Russian meta detectors in the market of passenger air travel. Attendance of the resource over the past year increased from 7 million to 10 million people, its revenue, according to estimates, increased twice. 40% more people began to look for tickets on Aviasales in 2017.

iTech Capital exited Ticketland via a strategic sale to MTS iTech Capital Fund and a group of co-investors, including entrepreneur Sergey Solonin (QIWI), sold their stakes in Ticketland, Russia’s leading ticketing operator, to MTS.

The deal amounted to Rouble 3.25 billion. Internal rate of return for investors of the fund taking into account interim dividends is estimated at the level of 38%.

iTech Capital invested US $10 million to create of one of the largest ticketing holdings in Eastern Europe in early 2013, when it bought out Moscow network of theatre box offices from the Moscow government. The purpose of the acquisition was to consolidate assets in the ticketing industry. The holding company further acquired "United Art Tickets" (operator for the sale of theatre and concert tickets) and Arena, sports ticketing processing company.

Today Ticketland is the leading player in the market of ticket sales for events in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan and Sochi. In 2017, the Company sold more than 3.5 million tickets, while the company's turnover was about Rouble 6 billion. The Holding is ranked on the 20th place in the list of the largest Internet companies in Russia in 2017.

Quote from Sergei Solonin (ex-owner of 57.6% of stake in Ticketland) «Ticketland sale to MTS holding will give a new driving force to the development of ticket operators. Through access to new channels of content delivery and technology of MTS, the leading telecom operator of Russia, Ticketland will significantly increase its user base, while customers will get a simple and fast access to services. This precedent will substantially change the interaction of such services with the end user".

iTech Capital Team initiated the transaction and led the sales process. According to Managing Partner of iTech Capital Gleb Davidyuk: "exit from Ticketland brought to investors of iTech Capital the expected level of profitability. The Fund actively participated in the main processes related to strategic management of the Company, which ensured the rapid growth of key indicators. Thanks to the professional team of managers led by Vitaly Vinogradov, operational efficiency of the business and leading positions on the market, Ticketland’s performance has always allowed shareholders to have a significant dividend yield without compromising company’s growth. Separately I would like to mention the colleagues from MTS, who effectively and timely conducted a complex and interesting transaction".

Ticketland CEO Vitaly Vinogradov said "Ticketland.ru will continue its activities as an independent organization. We will seek synergies with MTS in areas of interaction such as marketing, data science, personnel training and creation of new services ".

FEB 2018

Bitfury Launches New Software To Fight Bitcoin Crime Bitfury has launched a software stack called Crystal that is designed to help fight crimes involving Bitcoin.
Crystal will allow users to detect and examine criminal activity that takes place on the Bitcoin Blockchain and avoid interacting with coins that are associated with illegal transactions.
Crystal’s free demo version is available for individuals starting Jan. 30, while a full version for corporate clients will begin shipping in March 2018.
Crystal’s key tool is the so-called “detailed risk scoring” solution that is capable of tracing “suspicious” transactions to the final address or withdrawal point. It can also calculate the risk score of any address, which is estimated based on how closely that address is associated with known illegal activities.
Other tools include autonomous monitoring of Bitcoin addresses, compilation and sharing of security reports and the REST Application Programming Interface (API) that will allow third-party platforms to build customized solutions on top of Crystal’s tools.
Bitfury’s Crystal solution can potentially help in cases such as these by tracking the stolen bitcoins to their eventual point of withdrawal, whereby criminals can be caught red-handed.

JAN 2018

Bitfury and First Block Capital Make Strategic Investment In Emercoin The investment is in tandem with First Block Capital, the Canadian crypto investment firm. The Emercoin platform offers a number of features that the Bitfury team believes will increase adoption. These include anti-counterfeiting and domain name services, as well as decentralized advertising and digital time stamp and ownership features.

The Bitfury Group Unveils Solution For Analyzing Related Bitcoin Addresses The Bitfury Group, the world’s leading full-service Blockchain technology company detailed a new solution to help reveal relationships between bitcoin addresses that minimizes errors in data and ensures greater accuracy in linking bitcoin addresses for criminal investigations, while also showing bitcoin users ways to protect their privacy.
“Currently, bitcoin users can have multiple addresses, making it easier to conceal identities and commit crimes on the Blockchain. The ability to link related addresses, called ‘clustering,’ is an important new tool that helps law enforcement agencies conduct criminal investigations,” said Valery Vavilov, CEO of The Bitfury Group.
Bitcoin address clustering is a process that exposes bitcoin users by determining which addresses belong to a single user through an analysis of Blockchain data. The act of clustering groups those addresses together, enabling investigators to link them to a single entity.
In a new report, Bitfury reveals a comprehensive approach to clustering that reduces errors in results. While prior algorithms constructed clustering models using Blockchain information and validated it with off-chain data, such as public information on the Internet, Bitfury’s new method uses both data types during the model construction step. The proposed approach allows investigators to reduce errors in unreliable input data sources and achieve a higher level of accuracy.

To see the algorithms developed by the Bitfury team, read the full white paper here.

TradingView now ranks in the top 1000 sites in the world! Tradingview's Alexa rank has achieved 950. Moreover US Alexa rating now is 750. That’s an increase of 452 positions in the last 3 months. More and more traders find their way to TradingView and come here regularly to share ideas, give and receive feedback and take their trading to the next level. Congratulations!

Alexa rating now is 750. That’s an increase of 452 positions in the last 3 months. More and more traders find their way to TradingView and come here regularly to share ideas, give and receive feedback and take their trading to the next level. Congratulations!" data-image="http://itcap.vc//upload/resize_cache/iblock/de6/75_75_1/tradingview-logo.png">

DEC 2017

Hut 8 Partners with the Bitfury Group to Establish North America’s Largest Bitcoin Datacenters Bitfury, the world’s leading full-service blockchain technology company, will exclusively provide to Hut 8 a bitcoin mining solution comprised of a proprietary mix of hardware, software, installation and operational services.

Operating since 2011, Bitfury is the world’s largest bitcoin miner outside of China and holds approximately 11 percent of the technology’s market share. Bitfury manufactures its own Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) chips, which both removes reliance on third parties and increases performance and translates to lower costs, less space and quieter operations. Bitfury’s portable, containerized datacenter product, BlockBox AC, allows for significantly shortened set-up time required to establish effective bitcoin mining on a commercial scale.

Upon completion of the partnership, Hut 8 will own and operate what is believed to be the largest cryptocurrency mining farm in North America. In phase I, Hut 8 will gain immediate control over 22 bitcoin mining datacenters operating at 24.2 MW / 165 PH/s. In Q1 of 2018, a public listing on a Canadian stock exchange is expected and phase II of the deal is scheduled to be completed, increasing control to an additional 35 datacenters operating at 38.5 MW / 262.5 PH/s.

Through a combination of existing Bitfury sites and new installations, Hut 8 intends to scale rapidly throughout 2018 with installed capacity set to exceed 60 MW. Hut 8 also maintains the exclusive option to acquire additional datacenters from Bitfury in North America.

From today, Hut 8 is offering approximately 13,200,000 shares on a private placement basis through GMP Securities L.P., equal to approximately CAN$33,000,000, the proceeds from which will be applied towards the funding of phase I of the transaction described above.

Investors have the option of purchasing shares in this private placement round with bitcoin.

Covesting Partners with Tradingview.com for Integration with Their Crypto Copy-Trading Platform Covesting, an online crypto peer-to-peer asset management platform, has partnered with TradingView. Covesting is designing a platform allowing investors to copy the trades of professional traders from the safety of their own accounts. Over the past month, Covesting has announced several large partnerships to build the largest online crypto knowledge base. The knowledge base, named the Crypto Intelligence Porto, will become the largest data, news, learning and analysis tool for cryptocurrency. It’s currently being developed in cooperation with tradingfloor.com, a leading resource for traditional financial market advice.
TradingView is the perfect strategic partner for Covesting, bringing an excellent resource of aggregated data from several cryptocurrency exchanges in a beautifully designed user interface. Covesting has built its brand around simplfying the process of investing in cryptocurrency profitably. Covesting is excited about the partnership as TradingView represented their first choice to deliver the charting integration for the platform.
market.

Virtual​ ​reality​ ​and​ ​real​ ​deals:​ ​what​ ​is​ ​waiting​ ​for​ ​you​ ​on​ ​the​ ​Mobile​ ​Beach​ ​Conference 2018? On May 19-20, Odessa will host the annual Mobile Beach Conference, the largest open-air mobile marketing conference in Eastern Europe. Unlike those boring events, #MBC2018 will be organized in the infotainment format. Participants will listen to top speakers, share their own experiences and simply make deals. In comparison with the conference in 2017, we plan to expand at least twice and MBC2018 supposed to host more than 1200 attendees. Let's figure out what the organizers are preparing for the guests in 2018, and why you should buy a ticket for the conference at the Early Bird price:
In 2018, to the traditional topics of mobile marketing, we have added innovative themes such
as video, VR, AR and AI! The content we have prepared will be interesting to entrepreneurs,
C-level executives, marketers, start-ups, industry leaders and CEO of companies.
Top-level speakers are the strength of the MBC. The representatives of such companies as
Shazam, EA Games, Google, Looksery, MSQRD, AdColony, AppsFlyers, Unity, WarGaming
have already spoken on MBC in the past years!
In parallel with the educational program of the conference, MBC organizers also worked
hard for preparing entertaining part. The day before the start of the conference, on May 18 at
21:00 on the Black sea coast in Ibiza beach club there will be a pre-party with cool headliner,
cocktails and lots of opportunities to meet new acquaintances The next two days will take
place in a relaxed atmosphere on the beach, which provides fruitful conversations and
productive networking.
Organizers remind: the number of tickets at the lowest price is strictly limited. The price will
rise at Dec 6.
#MBC2018 - everyone wants to be here!

Early Bird price:
In 2018, to the traditional topics of mobile marketing, we have added innovative themes such
as video, VR, AR and AI! The content we have prepared will be interesting to entrepreneurs,
C-level executives, marketers, start-ups, industry leaders and CEO of companies.
Top-level speakers are the strength of the MBC. The representatives of such companies as
Shazam, EA Games, Google, Looksery, MSQRD, AdColony, AppsFlyers, Unity, WarGaming
have already spoken on MBC in the past years!
In parallel with the educational program of the conference, MBC organizers also worked
hard for preparing entertaining part. The day before the start of the conference, on May 18 at
21:00 on the Black sea coast in Ibiza beach club there will be a pre-party with cool headliner,
cocktails and lots of opportunities to meet new acquaintances The next two days will take
place in a relaxed atmosphere on the beach, which provides fruitful conversations and
productive networking.
Organizers remind: the number of tickets at the lowest price is strictly limited. The price will
rise at Dec 6.
#MBC2018 - everyone wants to be here!" data-image="http://itcap.vc//upload/resize_cache/iblock/4fd/75_75_1/logo1.png">

NOV 2017

THINK DIFFERENT: NEW APPROACHES IN PRIVATE EQUITY The 16th edition of the Private Equity Exchange & Awards will be held in Paris on November 30, 2017.
As one of the major Pan-European events on Private Equity & Restructuring, the Private Equity Exchange & Awards gathers each year 1,200 high-profile delegates and is dedicated to all players of these communities: CEOs, Funds, Limited Partners, Banks and specialist advisors.
Our Managing Partner, Gleb Davidyuk is taking part in the discussion about new approaches in Private Equity.

As one of the major Pan-European events on Private Equity & Restructuring, the Private Equity Exchange & Awards gathers each year 1,200 high-profile delegates and is dedicated to all players of these communities: CEOs, Funds, Limited Partners, Banks and specialist advisors.
Our Managing Partner, Gleb Davidyuk is taking part in the discussion about new approaches in Private Equity.

Could we entrust our money to the fintech company? Today, the Sixth international conference #eCom21 started in Riga, gathering around 600 professionals from the field of e-commerce and related industries. Gleb Davidyuk is one of the main speakers. Don’t miss his speech on the modern fintech!
Watch live on stage

live on stage" data-image="http://itcap.vc//upload/resize_cache/iblock/a1a/75_75_1/iTech-Capital.jpg">

NOV 2017

Blockchain Marathon: ITech Capital has become a Partner of Blockchain Marathon which will be held in Moscow on 24-25 of November. Our Managing Partner, Gleb Davidyuk, will be the one of the main speakers of the Сonference.

Riga Events Review 2017 November 2017 in Riga, promises to be generous for major events in the field of business technology, innovation, IT solutions, e-commerce and much more.
As “iTech Capital” is following the latest trends in digital community we will participate in some key event in Baltics taking place in Riga.
If you happen to be in one of the following events, don’t be a stranger and come to say Hi!

A series of interesting and significant events will be opened by the exhibition "RIGA COMM 2017" - Business technology and innovation.
On 9 and 10 of November, the Ķīpsala International Exhibition Centre will host, for the sixth time, the only business technology and innovation fair in the Baltics – “RIGA COMM 2017”. Alongside business and IT solutions, technology news and innovative smart devices, “RIGA COMM” will offer various events that provide practical knowledge and inspiration for successful work.
Read more: http://rigacomm.com/en/
Further, The biggest e-Commerce conference in the Baltics :“E-commerce HD2: homo digitalis in high definition” will take place on the 16-17 of November in Riga. Bringing together hundreds of participants each year from Baltic countries, Central, Eastern and Western Europe, the CIS countries, Asia and other regions of the world — including top-level business representatives, as well as other key players in the field of e-Commerce — this event offers a unique discussion platform on topics surrounding e-Commerce, as well as extensive international networking opportunities.
Read more: https://ecom21.com/en
First major event in Latvia dedicated to Bitcoin “The Baltic Honeybadger” conference is about to be held on the 25-26 of November. The main goal is to create an educational and community-driven event with high-profile speakers from all around the world and with different backgrounds – from technical engineers and cybersecurity professionals to business owners and bestselling authors.
Read more: https://bh2017.hodlhodl.com/
“The Digital Freedom Festival” on November 27-28 will be one more influential digital event. Around a thousand participants will discuss the latest trends and discoveries in digital technologies, as well as their impact on startups and corporations, policymaking, and, modern lifestyles. Read more: http://www.digitalfreedomfestival.com/about/what-is-dff/

JUL 2017

BITFURY TO HOST UPCOMING BLOCKCHAIN SUMMIT ON SIR RICHARD BRANSON’S PRIVATE NECKER ISLAND The Blockchain Summit, held on British billionaire Sir Richard Branson’s private Caribbean island, is hosted by the Bitfury group and Bill Tai. Credit China Fintech is also listed as providing special support.

Now in its third year, the annual event is being held for key global influencers in technology, civil society, democracy promotion, and innovation. It will be held from July 25-29, 2017 on Sir Branson’s private Necker Island. It is not open to the public which, for a summit advocating pro democracy, does give the event an exclusive and isolationist overtone.

Alexey Solovyov, who had been managing the venture fund Prostor Capital for more than five years, joined iTech Capital team as a Partner and Managing Director. His responsibilities will include supervising and managing the Moscow office operations, as well as managing the new private-public fund Skolkovo IT Fund. A part of Prostor Capital GP staff will also join iTech team, and the fund will be managed by iTech Capital.

Comments from Alexey Solovyov: "At the initial stage, I face an ambitious task to further strengthen the best team on the venture investment market and adjust all the corporate processes to the level of world standards. The global goal of the Fund’s entire team and, first of all, of its Partners is to build a successful international investment business."

Comments from Gleb Davidyuk, Managing Partner of iTech Capital: "iTech Capital has huge plans. In addition to exits from the first Fund companies and launching the second one, we intend to expand and diversify our business. On the basis of iTech, we are creating a global private asset management company. To meet the challenge, you need an ace-high team and a reliable partner who will take on some of the highest-level management tasks. Alexey is one of the most competent and recognizable managers on our market, and I am confident that our partnership will allow us to realize the ambitious plans iTech faces."

About Alexey Solovyov and Prostor Capital Fund
Alexey Solovyov was the head of Prostor Capital from the moment of its foundation in 2011, and earlier, for two years, he had been working at ru-Net, Leonid Boguslavsky’s investment company. Alexey's previous professional experience related to business development, M&A, strategic development and marketing in the largest IT companies – IBS and Optima. He graduated with a degree in Computer Sciences from the Bauman Moscow State Technical University, and in 2019 will get an EMBA degree from the Chicago Booth School of Business.

Prostor Capital was founded in 2011 with its size of US $20M and the current portfolio of 7 companies. In 2016, the Fund made the first exit by selling UMI.ru project to 1C Company. Recently, there has been the second exit, when the Fund’s portfolio company Dulton Media was bought by one of the largest players of the Russian Internet and media market, Rambler & Co Holding.

MAY 2017

TradingView Expands Partnership with GAIN Capital, Integrating Terminal The expansion will see the integration of TradingView's terminal, trading tools, and access from over 1.5M users.TradingView has unveiled a newly expanded partnership with Forex.com and its parent group GAIN Capital Holdings, enabling traders to fully utilize its trading terminal and other suite of tools, according to a company statement.

Last month, GAIN Capital Holdings made an announcement about the activation of a new product for its US clients – this culminated in a newly launched deal with TradingView to provide its customers with access to the widely acclaimed advanced web-based charting solution.

Whereas the previous agreement with Forex.com and TradingView as relegated to charts, the expanded deal will see a much broader focus on trading resources, including access to TradingView’s trading terminal, its charting library, and web-based front end platform, among others.

TradingView has unveiled a newly expanded partnership with Forex.com and its parent group GAIN Capital Holdings, enabling traders to fully utilize its trading terminal and other suite of tools, according to a company statement." data-image="http://itcap.vc//upload/resize_cache/iblock/22a/75_75_1/tradingview.png">

MAY 2017

TradingView adds Singapore Stock Exchange intraday data, new forex cross rate widget TradingView, the online charting tools developer and social trading platform announced it is adding intraday data from the Singapore Stock Exchange and has released a new customizable Forex Cross Rates Widget.

The Singapore market data includes chart data, fundamental data, hotlists and the Stock Screener. TradingView gives free access to live SGX Index and FX Futures quotes. The free market data on stocks, derivatives and commodities is delayed by 15 minutes. The TradingView users with any type of upgraded plan can purchase real-time data.

The company has an ever expanding list of markets data – paid and free, with the latest addition being intraday data from Canadian markets.

Georgia Records 100,000 Land Titles on Bitcoin Blockchain: BitFury In April 2016, the Georgian government and the Bitcoin company BitFury initiated a project to record land titles on the Blockchain.

Following the project initiation, on Feb. 7th, 2017, in Tbilisi, the government of Georgia signed an agreement to use the Bitcoin Blockchain to verify property transactions.

And on 19th of April 2017, Valery Vavilov, CEO of BitFury during his speech at the Russian Internet Forum in Moscow, said, that since the launch in February 2017, when his company along with the government of the Republic of Georgia implemented the property registration on Blockchain had registered more than 100,000 documents.

Earlier this year, Tomicah Tillemann, Trust Accelerator co-founder and New America director of the Bretton Woods II program, commented about Georgia’s decision to use the public Bitcoin Blockchain:
“If you think about this happening at a time when a lot of people are struggling to separate what’s real from what’s fake, this is a powerful tool to prove what’s real. Especially when you’re dealing with something as fundamental as your home or property, it’s important to have that added layer of security that’s provided by Blockchain validation.”

Vavilov also said, that there is going to be more services to follow. Since Blockchain implementation, there is no possibility to manipulate the property registration data.

It is not only a government implementation deal for BitFury, on April 13, the Bitfury Group has announced its partnership with the government of Ukraine, to bring a variety of Blockchain solutions to the electronic services of the latter.

Following the project initiation, on Feb. 7th, 2017, in Tbilisi, the government of Georgia signed an agreement to use the Bitcoin Blockchain to verify property transactions.

And on 19th of April 2017, Valery Vavilov, CEO of BitFury during his speech at the Russian Internet Forum in Moscow, said, that since the launch in February 2017, when his company along with the government of the Republic of Georgia implemented the property registration on Blockchain had registered more than 100,000 documents.

Ukraine to launch big blockhain deal with tech firm Bitfury Ukraine has partnered with global technology company the Bitfury Group to put a sweeping range of government data on a blockchain platform, the firm's chief executive officer told Reuters, in a project he described as probably the largest of its kind anywhere.

Bitfury, a blockchain company with offices in the United States and overseas, will provide the services to Ukraine, CEO Valery Vavilov said in an interview on Wednesday. Ukraine's blockchain initiative underscores a growing trend among governments that have adopted the technology to increase efficiencies and improve transparency.

Ukraine's blockchain initiative underscores a growing trend among governments that have adopted the technology to increase efficiencies and improve transparency.

Clickky Expands to China With the New Office Opening Clickky, a full stack platform for user acquisition and mobile monetization, announces the opening of a new office in Beijing, China. The company plans to accommodate its rapid growth in the APAC region and engage local talent for the business development efforts.

Clickky already operates 5 offices in 4 countries and employs more than 90 professionals worldwide. Clickky offers both self-serve and managed solutions for app developers, mobile ad networks and agencies, SSPs, DSPs and media buyers. The Beijing office will take central role in Clickky’s activities on the Asia-Pacific market.

The office will be headed by Ray Zhou, Business Developer with extensive experience in the Greater China area. Before joining Clickky, he has been successfully leading a business development team at ironSource, working both on demand and supply side. Ray will put his experience in user acquisition and monetization management for expanding Clickky’s presence in the APAC region.

“Clickky’s new office opening is the logical continuation of the company’s own growth strategy,” says Vadim Rogovskiy, founder and CEO at Clickky. “At first, we plan to pay more attention to promoting our API AdExchange and monetization SDK for mobile publishers. We are open to growing opportunities and happy to expand our influence and capabilities in China, leveraging the potential of the market and providing smart solutions for publishers and advertisers alike.”

Hot May in Odessa with Mobile Beach Conference On 19-21 of May, the Black Sea shore will host the brightest event in mobile industry in the whole Eastern Europe — Mobile Beach Conference organised by Clickky.

Star speakers
This year MBC will host speakers from Shazam, Looksery, Unity, Avazu and Mail.ru. The list is constantly growing.

Useful contacts
More than 1000 participants, and not one random person: CEO, top managers, app developers, owners of advertising networks and agencies, investors and mobile evangelists.

Unique atmosphere
With the ‘relaxed networking’, Mobile Beach Conference helps developing partner relations. At least that is what the last year participants say from their own experience.

Exhibition
This year the conference will open the exhibition zone for the first time. And it means that there will be a special area where you can get acquainted with the mobile technology innovations and receive consultation from specialists.

Startup battle
From more than 100 participants we will choose 10 brightest mobile startups. Right before your eyes they will battle for the victory. Sorry, but the winner takes it all. ;) Startups will be showcased in a special area — the Startup Alley, where you can discuss all the mobile news over a cup of smoothie. Mobile

Awards
Here we can put +2. We have added 2 more nominations to the last year list of 3. As it has been before, the conference will be a platform for awarding the winners, chosen by the internet vote.

The price degree will increase starting April 1. Make sure you join before it gets hot. Promo-code for our subscribers: iTechMBC2017 (10% discount).

Bitfury to Partner With Largest eSignature Platform in China, BestSign Bitcoin mining giant and blockchain transactions processing company BitFury Group has announced a strategic partnership with BestSign, the largest eSignature platform company in China.
The deal is meant to revolutionize how online documents are processed by BestSign. Its clients and partners in China include UnionPay, Sina, Lenovo, TCL, Midea, Apple, Intel, and Microsoft.

“We are proud to be joining forces with such a dynamic and forward-looking company like BestSign,” said Valery Vavilov, CEO and founder of The Bitfury Group. “With The Bitfury Group’s full-service blockchain offerings and commitment to expansion of blockchain technology, BestSign will be able to offer its clients additional peace of mind knowing that they have access to the most secure and advanced technology in the world.”

“As a leader in electronic signature cloud platforms in China currently, Shanghangqian (BestSign) has reached a deal with The Bitfury Group, the world’s leading blockchain technology company, to jointly develop electronic contract products based on the underlying technology for blockchain,” said Miss Joy Wan, CEO of BestSign. “This deal can not only facilitate the real use of blockchain technology in the electronic contract sector, advance the application of blockchain technologies such as distributed ledger and smart contract, but also better help our clients by providing them with better products to enable safer contract signature and storage through blockchain technology.”

It hasn’t been that long since TradingView introduced an upgrade of its proprietary trading platform, and the data-driven social network has done it again. The company has just informed its users that it has added a new exchange to its stock screener which expands the product suite to cover a total of seventeen exchanges across eleven countries, according to a TradingView update.

The latest batch of changes allows market participants to garner information and screening stocks from Switzerland’s principal exchange, the SIX Swiss Exchange. According to the web based charting provider, registered users will have access to the SIX data delayed by 15 minutes but with an option to upgrade their subscription to include real-time data. In addition, users will be able to scan the Swiss Market with its Stock Screener and also have access to hotlists such as top gainers, losers, most active and more.

GAIN Capital Partners with TradingView for Charting GAIN Capital Holdings has made an announcement about the activation of a new product for its US clients. The company signed a partnership deal with TradingView to provide its customers with access to the widely acclaimed advanced web-based charting solution.

The President of Retail at GAIN Capital, Samantha Roady, comments: “TradingView provides one of the most powerful web-based charting platforms available today. In keeping with our commitment to provide the best trading tools to our customers, we are thrilled to be working with the TradingView team to offer their advanced charting to our FOREX.com customers.”

TradingView’s charting solution has gained a lot of popularity in recent years due to the smooth HTML5 charts that encompass a number of asset classes. Before GAIN Capital started providing the tool to its clients, TradingView has already been delivering its services to customers of FXCM and OANDA. More:

HK fintech company Credit China Fintech invests $30 million in blockchain provider BitFury Group Blockchain infrastructure provider BitFury Group announced on Thursday a deal with Hong Kong-listed fintech company Credit China Fintech Holdings to set up a joint venture that will focus on promoting the technology in China.
As part of the deal, Credit China Fintech will invest $30 million in BitFury shares and the setting up of the joint venture. The joint venture will be used to sell BitFury's bitcoin mining equipment.
BitFury Group provides hardware and software around blockchain technology and this will be its first major venture in China.
Find out more: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/25/blockchain-news-bitfury-group-announced-30-million-dollar-deal-with-credit-china-fintech.html

OCT 2016

Сlickky has Launched an All-in-one Self-serve Platform for Mobile App Promotion Сlickky is launching a comprehensible Self-Serve Platform for advertisers tailored to the needs of app developers, agencies and networks. The company merged a 5-year experience in mobile advertising to create the most convenient and easy-to-use interface with all the required features. The result is an all-in-one platform, which incorporates automatization tools that will help simplify ad campaign launch and management and optimize daily routine.There is no need to wait for the manager's response any more as the new interface makes mobile advertising easier than ever.
More: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/lickky-launched-one-self-serve-150000004.html

SEP 2016

TradingView limits ads on charts with Signature Field feature TradingView, an online charting tool and a trading platform in one, has introduced a feature called Signature Field, which is taking all reference to and advertisement of third-party products away from trading charts. The platform has set new criteria for what can be promoted in the charting area and how.
More: https://smnweekly.com/2016/09/06/tradingview-limits-ads-on-charts-with-signature-field-feature/

AUG 2016

TradingView Adds Market Depth Feature Online web based charting provider, TradingView, announced today on its blog the addition of a new trading tool – Depth of market (DOM), which is already available now on the charting platform, as per a corporate statement.
The new tool shows a list of open buy and sell orders for a security at different prices, so you can see at a glance what kind of liquidity is available for each symbol and each price. The data is streamed from CQG, and could be slightly different since various data sources are used.
More: http://www.financemagnates.com/forex/technology/tradingview-adds-market-depth-feature/

JUN 2016

New America, Bitfury Group and NDI announce blockchain initiative for social good New America, Bitfury Group and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) have come together to form the Blockchain Trust Accelerator Initiative, which aims to link governments with technologists and funders to accelerate the adoption of the technology for social good and governance.

Clickky's Mobile Beach Conference 2016 Became the Hottest and the Largest Mobile Marketing Event in Eastern Europe On May 28-29, Clickky hosted the largest mobile marketing event in Eastern Europe: the Mobile Beach Conference 2016 (MBC2016).
The conference registered 596 mobile marketing professionals, 215 companies (from 17 countries) and 37 speakers. MBC2016 had two separate tracks of content. As for the speakers, MBC2016 gathered representatives from the leading global companies from the fields of marketing, analytics, mobile advertising and mobile development. It was the first time the conference in Eastern Europe gathered so many speakers of such a level.
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/2970702#ixzz4CDXVYTOE

JUN 2016

Ecwid - The Future of Ecommerce Jim O’Hara, President at Ecwid shared some of his thoughtful insights with you today.
Full interview with Jim O’Hara here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aj-agrawal/ecwid--the-future-of-ecom_b_10246992.html

MAY 2016

Clickky Impresses with Launch of CPI Index Сlickky, a leading platform for mobile traffic monetization on emerging markets, has formally launched the Clickky CPI Index, which shows the current state of market demand.
Based on Clickky advertising campaign data, the Index is a market analysis that shows the demand dynamics for different countries.
“The Clickky platform accumulates a huge amount of ad campaign data, which shows market trends and statistics,” the company’s announcement reads. “The visualization of industry dynamics that the Index helps to understand global trends and tendencies.”

The Index is calculated for different countries, two OSes (iOS, Android), non-incent traffic and multiple app categories. The analysis shows market statistics and exactly how much advertisers are ready to pay for their installs. This includes the average CPI by country, by verticals within different countries and by OS (iOS and Android).

MAY 2016

Ecwid is First SMB e-Commerce Platform to Provide Both Fully Automated and Logic Based Sales Tax and VAT Calculation Ecwid, the ecommerce platform that makes it a snap for anyone to sell their products anywhere, has launched a fully automated sales tax and VAT solution for online merchants, in partnership with TaxJar. Previously, online sellers had to determine sales tax and VAT rates and complicated rules to configure data tables manually, in order to determine when, and how much sales tax to collect at checkout. Further, online businesses were required to keep up with new laws and regulations in every location where they sold products, just to remain compliant. During the periods nearing monthly or quarterly sales tax deadlines, these merchants were forced to sort through complicated spreadsheets reflecting their sales histories, so they could create and remit sales tax filings across various states.

TradingView Aims to Connect to Multiple Brokers Via Tradable API The company officially announced that it is looking for beta testers for the trading functionality via FXCM live and demo.
More: http://www.financemagnates.com/forex/brokers/tradingview-aims-connect-multiple-brokers-via-tradable-api/

MAY 2016

Forex Charting Platform TradingView Allows Second-based Timeframes TradingView, a retail charting tool and a trading platform in one, has released an updated, more utilized and optimized version of its Charting Library, which includes an option for setting up timeframes for a desired time in seconds

BitFury was listed among the 50 fastest growing European technology companies by Tech Tour BitFury was listed among the 50 fastest growing European technology companies by Tech Tour, which evaluated over 175 European private companies with capitalizations of up to US $ 1 billion together with Silverpeak Investment Bank and the jury of international investors such as Accel Partners, DN Capital, Earlybird and Highland Europe.

BitFury Announces Blockchain Land Titling Project With the Republic of Georgia The Republic of Georgia’s National Agency of Public Registry, renowned Peruvian economist Hernando De Soto and Bitcoin company BitFury announced a partnership to design and pilot a blockchain land titling project

TradingView starts offering real-time data from Indian exchanges Financial visualization expert TradingView announced on Monday the beginning of offering of official real-time and intraday data from two Indian stock exchanges – the National Stock Exchange and the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Pro, Pro Plus and Premium account holders with TradingView can purchase BSE market data subscription for $4 per month. At present, NSE data is available for free to all TradingView users.
The announcement comes shortly after TradingView commenced offering official real-time data from the London Stock Exchange. And in March this year, it added another Bitcoin exchange to the lineup of providers of data for its users, the latest addition being Poloniex, a US-based cryptocurrency exchange.

APR 2016

BitFury Explains How to Securely Store and Transfer Digital Assets on the Bitcoin Blockchain Leading Bitcoin Blockchain infrastructure provider and transaction processing company, BitFury, has recently released a white paper entitled “Digital Assets on Public Blockchains”. The paper demonstrates methods of storing and transferring digital assets securely on the bitcoin-secured public blockchain.

Ecwid Enables Stores to Create Customized Mobile Apps to Sell Ecwid, the ecommerce platform that makes it a snap for anyone to sell their products anywhere, has launched ShopApp which lets merchants provide their own, branded automated mobile application. Since ShopApp is bundled into Ecwid’s core product and does not rely on third party extensions, Ecwid store owners now can offer an ecommerce app for their customers' iOS and Android phones without writing a single line of code.

MAR 2016

The Сlickky AdExchange API has grown to 30,000 ad campaigns daily, the largest real-time CPI marketplace in the world. The Clickky AdExchange API provides the ability to receive mobile offers from leading global networks through a single, easily-integrated API. The Clickky platform has an eCPM prioritization algorithm, which provides mobile websites the best eCPM possible. A centralized reporting system enables publishers to track their earnings across campaigns. The Clickky AdExchange API provides an in-house fraud protection solution that enables auto-detection and blocks low CR campaigns. Publishers also have the ability to sell their own inventory on the same platform.

MAR 2016

Oanda upgrading trading platform, adds TradingView charts The major US forex broker Oanda announced it has upgraded its proprietary fxTrade platform and has integrated the TradingView financial charting and trading platform.

MAR 2016

Clickky in Inc. 5000 - list of fastest-growing private companies in Europe Clickky ranked #11 out of 5000 companies that made the Inc5000 Europe 2016 list and made TOP-5 among marketing and advertising companies.

FEB 2016

Aviasales and Hotellook launched a situational promo Aviasales and Hotellook launched a new service Shaurmaps, telling where to find the best shawarma in the world along with the ticket prices available at Aviasales. This is a great example of situational marketing considering the hype around the shopping centers demolition in Moscow last week.

Ecwid releases private-label reseller program, Jumpstart Partners Ecommerce solution, Ecwid, is looking to set themselves apart from the pack of other shopping cart applications. With over 900k stores in over 125 countries, the company wanted to offer something more than the traditional plugins and services.

FEB 2016

TradingView enables creation of custom spread charts with Quandl data TradingView announced one more step towards enhancing the collaboration with Quandl (http://www.quandl.com/). The TradingView team has improved the spread feature, so now users can use math operators to create custom spread charts with symbols from Quandl.

http://www.quandl.com/). The TradingView team has improved the spread feature, so now users can use math operators to create custom spread charts with symbols from Quandl." data-image="http://itcap.vc//upload/resize_cache/iblock/c82/75_75_1/TV.png">

JAN 2016

BitFury CEO Valery Vavilov On Increasing The Size Of Bitcoin “Blocks” CEO Valery Vavilov of the bitcoin infrastructure provider and transaction processing company BitFury speaks on what BitFury does exactly, why the company is supporting a proposal to increase bitcoin bandwidth, and those cases where bitcoin is likely to become very useful.

Clickky AdExchange Grows to Over 20,000 Mobile Ad Campaigns AdExchange, Clickky's automated mobile advertising platform, experienced significant growth over the last five months, and now provides access to more than 20,000 mobile ad campaigns.

Clickky AdExchange is the largest automated mobile ad platform for advertising offers in Eastern Europe.

FACT 1: Bitcoin Is Not an Electronic Payments System Like PayPal

Many Bitcoin newcomers view the network as yet another electronic system for instant payments, like PayPal or Visa. Right here we have a very substantial difference in opinion. Bitcoin was never designed to confirm instant payments and believing that is its function is a mistake.

“Visa and PayPal already exist, and within national borders they do what they do quite well. It’s silly to try to turn Bitcoin into yet another Visa and PayPal.”

I believe, based on the way the system was designed and developed by Satoshi, that it would be disingenuous to expect instant transaction confirmation from the Bitcoin network — it is simply not wired that way. No increase of the block size limit could help make instant Bitcoin transaction confirmation a reality.

Does this mean that Bitcoin cannot be used for instant payments? Not at all. You simply need an additional system operating on top of the Bitcoin Blockchain (with the Blockchain acting as a settlement layer). These systems already exist in custodial wallet services and Bitcoin exchanges. But the larger point is that the potential of Bitcoin is so much greater and transformative than simply hoping it can compete with PayPal.

FACT 2: Bitcoin Is Not and Should Not Be Free to Use

While the Bitcoin network dramatically lowers the cost of transactions, the reality is that the Bitcoin Blockchain is not free to use. The Blockchain is secured with an enormous amount of computing power, and transaction fees are an important incentive to keep contributing that power.

Just like with instant payments, expensive on-chain Bitcoin transactions do not mean that one cannot use Bitcoin for cheap value transfer. Overlay networks, such as Lightning and sidechains, can successfully deal with this challenge while in-service ledgers already do.

FACT 3: Bitcoin Transaction Processing Is Not Presently Clogged

There is no observable evidence that Bitcoin transaction processing is presently clogged. Key statistics gathered by Statoshi http://statoshi.info/ for the past few months show the pool of unconfirmed transactions has held relatively steady at about 10,000 transactions — a significant decrease from over 75,000 unconfirmed transactions during “the stress test” performed in September 2015. Most of these transactions, according to CoinTape http://www.cointape.com/ pay zero or near-zero transaction fees.

For Bitcoin wallets with proper fee estimation logic, the clogging challenge simply does not exist. According to web-based fee estimation services, such as CoinTape, as of January, 2016, the optimal transaction fee for an average transaction is less than 0.1 USD — quite small for most use cases. The issue we do face is with “free riders” — applications with a business model relying on non-existent Bitcoin transaction fees.

FACT 4: Miners Embrace Bitcoin’s Popularity

Bitcoin miners and transaction processors such as BitFury, are likely the biggest supporters of the Bitcoin ecosystem and any suggestion otherwise is simply ridiculous. Bitcoin miners invest enormous amounts of money and efforts into developing and maintaining bitcoin mining hardware. As the Scaling Bitcoin conferences have shown, miners are generally in support of cautious increases of the block size limit — just not abrupt increases — because such sudden change could undermine the foundation of the Bitcoin network. BitFury has detailed these points in our white paper http://bitfury.com/content/4-white-papers-research/block-size-1.1.1.pdf

Even if there were merely ten entities controlling Bitcoin mining (which there are not), this would still not be a threat. There are many Bitcoin nodes not controlled by miners, which would act as a barrier against rogue miners’ misbehavior. However, a rapidly rising block size could put most of these nodes out of work because they would simply have to switch off due to a lack appropriate hardware to perform transaction processing), paving the road to the real centralization (see [The Decentralist Perspective] https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/decentralist-perspective-bitcoin-might-need-small-blocks-1442090446).

FACT 6: Mass Rule is Not Appropriate for Bitcoin

The pipe dream of some in the Bitcoin community is to govern the system by having ordinary users vote for changes by adopting the corresponding full node software. This approach is not only impractical, it is also not desirable. Most ordinary Bitcoin users do not own a full node and ironically, if they did, it is quite possible they could not afford its maintenance after a hypothetical abrupt block size increase. Users of Bitcoin should most certainly have a say in the direction of this technology, but in order to appropriately and continuously secure the Blockchain, it is responsible for all of us who are knowledgeable about the science to take a leadership role where and when it is necessary.

FACT 7: Bitcoin XT Would Not Have Solved Bitcoin’s Challenges

Bitcoin XT was considered by some a remedy for perceived problems with the Bitcoin ecosystem. However, upon closer inspection, XT leaves at least some of these challenges, and the reality is that XT would not have made transaction confirmation immediate and would not have reduced the risk of double-spending for unconfirmed transactions.

Additionally:

· XT would not have eliminated transaction fees — it would have merely delayed the development of the fee market. (The perspective of having no fees forever is much worse; as the block reward steadily diminishes, the security of the network would eventually take a nosedive.)

· XT would have done nothing about the “mining centralization” problem. In fact, it would have made things worse by pushing small mining pools out of business.

· XT would not have helped decentralization and would have made things worse by elevating the requirements to maintain a full Bitcoin node.

· XT code updates would not have differed from Bitcoin Core in the expressive means of its users — all voting rounds would still need to be introduced into the code by developers.

CONCLUSION

I believe in Bitcoin. I believe in the Blockchain. I know that the vast potential is just being realized. We wish Mr. Hearn all the best as he commences his work with our friends at R3CEV. It is important that we respect various input but simultaneously resist the temptation to give Mr. Hearn’s voice too much weight.

Bitcoin is not an instant payment network and not a fancy replacement for PayPal or Visa. It is first and foremost a decentralized system, which sacrifices speed in favor of security. A key feature provided by decentralization is permissionless entry for users and developers — and it is thanks to this component that Bitcoin has grown into much more than a currency and has become a platform for Blockchain innovations.

Most importantly, Bitcoin is a new world created for anyone — especially for someone like me — who didn’t grow up in a world where “trusted emissary” was a reality and the idea of “asset security” was something other people in other parts of the world enjoyed.

I believe in Bitcoin because I believe in democracy and I believe in open societies. And as Winston Churchill once said: “Democracy is the worst form of Government, except for all the others.” Open source projects are not perfect, but they unite the best and most innovative thinkers, and I am honored to be a part of this mission.

Ecwid developed omnichannel inventory management tools for Square users If you're an omnichannel business, staying on top of your inventory levels is a perennial challenge. So we have the experts at Ecwid here with some tips and tricks to make sure you're always stocked up across all your channels.

To make omnichannel inventory management a breeze, be sure to hook up your Square account to Ecwid in Square App Marketplace. Read more at https://squareup.com/townsquare/managing-omnichannel-inventory-take-out-of-stock-out-of-your-vocabulary/

JAN 2016

Bitfury is one of the top-5 most influential bitcoin companies in 2016 For one, the technology's open-source community will need to resolve some outstanding questions, most notably whether it will increase the size of blocks on the blockchain. Meanwhile it must combat the effects of "private blockchains" seeking to court market share.

With the variety of applications now being built, it is difficult to imagine it simply fading away anytime soon.

But the big question remains: Which use case will first bring about bitcoin’s wider acknowledgement?

With this in the background, here are the five companies that I believe will have a considerable impact on the industry this coming year.

Blockstream

One of the more well-funded startups, Blockstream is nonetheless a self-described ‘stealth bitcoin company’ working on accelerating the development of cryptocurrency, open asset and smart contact technology.

The company has been busy in the background, launching a beta of its banner sidechains project and announcing its first commercial product, Liquid, which is aimed at speeding up transfer times between bitcoin exchanges, in 2015.

One of the projects that Blockstream has decided to explore further is the Lightning Network – a proposal that would move smaller bitcoin transactions off the blockchain so they could occur more quickly with reduced fees. It nonetheless recreates the trustless nature of the current network design.

The Lightning Network has the ability to reduce the total number of transactions that need to be settled on the bitcoin blockchain, and thus removes their affect on the necessary total size of blocks.

The network faces technical challenges before it can go live, though, such as the integration of various changes to Bitcoin Core. I believe we will see most of these issues resolved and that Blockstream, or perhaps even a different party, will launch its version of Lightning during 2016.

This will greatly relieve the current buildup of pressure surrounding the block size discussion, and add to the robustness of the bitcoin network.

tØ

tØ is a blockchain-based trading platform created by online retail giant Overstock, first announced in August. Part of the firm’s larger Medici arm, tØ aims to revolutionise securities by making trade and settlement occur simultaneously using blockchain technology.

While the SEC did recently approve Overstock’s plan to issue stock via blockchain technology, Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne said in a recent article by Motherboard that it might not use the bitcoin blockchain as part of its efforts.

"Maybe we're not going to use the bitcoin blockchain ... Maybe there's another blockchain we want to integrate with, with higher throughput," he told the news source.

This comment is in reference to the bitcoin block size, as a limited number of transactions also results in a limited number of instant settlements the company can offer.

Continuing with my belief that the block size issue will be addressed during 2016 in some way, I also believe tØ will utilise the bitcoin blockchain as opposed to a private blockchain due to bitcoin’s decentralised, secure and relatively trustless nature.

If this comes about, this would be the first major security settlement product released that utilises bitcoin, and a key milestone in bitcoin’s history.

OpenBazaar

OpenBazaar is currently working on one of the most compelling consumer applications for bitcoin out there with the development of a decentralised marketplace.

If successful, OpenBazaar would essentially serve as an open-source competitor to eBay that has reduced fees for all parties due to its decentralised nature.

OpenBazaar faces what I believe to be relatively trivial challenges in launching, including the development of a robust reputation system and the classic chicken-and-egg problem of acquiring volume in a new marketplace.

However, with its recent venture capital fundraise of $1m in June 2015, I believe we will see the highly anticipated launch and expansion of OpenBazaar during 2016.

Zapchain

Zapchain is a social media platform powered by bitcoin and is one of my personal favourite companies.

The startup’s integration of on-chain bitcoin micropayments for tipping is a truly revolutionary idea that fosters high-quality user engagement and content creation amongst various self-created communities.

Zapchain’s biggest hurdle lies in its ability to continue its growth, while avoiding spam users.

From what I have seen of Zapchain, though, its ability to curb spammers has proved effective and the platform is currently more popular than ever.

During 2016, I predict Zapchain will continue its growth in non-bitcoin related communities and also become recognised as a top bitcoin news platform. Zapchain embodies the spirit of bitcoin, and also provides a key alternative to some controversially moderated bitcoin communities.

BitFury

The best-funded bitcoin mining company with over $60m raised so far, BitFury announced on 16th December that it will bring a new ASIC chip to market in Q1 2016.

The launch of its new data centre in Georgia could double the total bitcoin network hashing rate, leading some to worry about the integrity of bitcoin’s mining decentralisation.

I believe this risk is perhaps overstated and that the major net effect of BitFury's innovations will be increased (and possibly almost doubled) security for the network.

Furthermore, affecting the integrity of bitcoin’s decentralised nature would act against BitFury’s best interests as a bitcoin company.

BitFury CEO, Valery Vavilov, has also reflected this sentiment, suggesting his company intends to act in the interests of the network as a whole.

In 2015, through Aviasales partners sold airline tickets in the amount of about US$ 243 million. To compare: in 2014, according to Forbes' estimates, the same amount was paid in total to 25 highest-paid heads of the largest Russian companies ($ 242 million). This amount was also asked by The US White House to reserve in the US Budget for 2016 to fund cybersecurity measures.

DEC 2015

SeoPult developed a new module for context ads that enables to review the keywords used by the competitors ads SeoPult developed a new module for context ads that enables to review the keywords used by the competitors ads.

This will help advertisers to choose the most interesting options and add them to their project. A distinctive feature is the ability to pick the choice of words that occur simultaneously at several competitors.

DEC 2015

Bitcoin is booming with the highest mining and transaction rates Though headlines about bitcoin this year have focused on the challenges facing the cryptocurrency, it's still booming with some of the highest mining and transaction rates in its history.

The global network of miners computes about 700 quadrillion hashes, or 700 petahashes, per second. Valery Vavilov, the CEO of bitcoin mining technology company BitFury, predicted in an email to Fast Company the network will soon enter the "exahash era," computing more than one quintillion hashes every second, thanks in part to new speedier mining chips it’s set to release early next year.

While BitFury conducts its own mining operations on a grand scale—the company just opened a massive new data center in Tbilisi, Georgia, last week that Vavilov says will on its own ultimately transform 40 megawatts of power into between 400 and 650 petahash—it also offers its chips for sale to other miners.

At present, bitcoin’s trading roughly 35% higher against the dollar than at this point last year, at roughly $435 per bitcoin, though that’s still far from its peak just over two years ago, when it briefly traded for more than $1,200 per coin.

BitFury Announces Mass Production of Fastest and Most Effective 16nm ASIC Chip in the World Blockchain Transaction Processing Company Will Bring Chip To Market In First Quarter of 2016 Through Integration And Reseller Partners

BitFury Group, the leading Bitcoin Blockchain infrastructure provider and transaction processing company in the world today announced mass-production of its full-custom design 16nm Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) Chip, which will bring unmatched energy efficiency to the Bitcoin network.

After rigorous testing, the new BitFury Chip has demonstrated outstanding computing capabilities. The design target was 40 gigahash per second with power efficiency of 0.06 joules per gigahash. On average, the measured power efficiency of tested engineering samples of the new BitFury Chip ranges from 0.055 joules per gigahash to 0.07 joules per gigahash, thus making the BitFury 16nm ASIC Chip the industry leader in energy efficiency. In addition to its outstanding power efficiency, BitFury’s 16nm ASIC Chip can run with as low as 0.35V power supply voltage.

The static part of the Chip can be functional at as low as 0.28V power supply voltage. This level of productivity was previously unattainable with existing silicon devices and existing silicon design methodologies, with transistors working in active mode, not slow sub-threshold. J / Gh metric in working modes starting from 55 Gh/s up to 180 Gh/s follows an almost linear relationship of 0.0011, while at 40 – 55 Gh/s measured slope converges to plateau.

Valery Vavilov, CEO of BitFury, said: “We are very excited to launch mass production of our super 16nm ASIC Chip. The final results of our hard work have fully met our expectations. We understand that it will be nearly impossible for any older technology to compete with the performance of our new 16nm technology. As a responsible player in the Bitcoin community, we will be working with integration partners and resellers to make our unique technology widely available ensuring that the network remains decentralized and we move into the exahash era together. BitFury warmly welcomes all companies interested in joining our integration and reseller program.”

Jim Lai, President of GUC, said: “We have worked closely with BitFury’s experienced IC designers and we are glad to assist BitFury to achieve this outstanding result. GUC is proud that the BitFury-GUC partnership resulted in the first 16nm full custom tape-out for both parties.”

DEC 2015

TradingView is on of the Top-15 fastest-growing startups in Chicago TradingView became on of the 15 fastest-growing Chicago startups with less than $10M raised http://chicagoinno.streetwise.co/2015/11/25/these-are-the-15-fastest-growing-chicago-startups-with-less-than-10m-raised/

DEC 2015

Ecwid is one of the most featured apps in media Ecwid is one of the most featured among E-Commerce Innovation Battleground apps in media http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2496641,00.asp

DEC 2015

iTech Capital became a winner of the "Eurolawyer Awards 2015" iTech Capital became a winner of the "Eurolawyer Awards 2015" in a category “Legal Department of the Year: Best M&A Deal”.
“Eurolawyer Awards” is the 2nd Awards Ceremony for best legal departments of Eastern Europe and EU that have distinguished themselves in various areas of legal practice 2014-2015.

DEC 2015

Alex Telnov is appointed as an Investment Director at iTech Capital Alex Telnov is appointed as an Investment Director at iTech Capital. In the position of Investment Director Alex will take over the responsibility for FinTech and Mobile advertising sector strategy at iTech portfolio.

Alex Telnov says: “It is a great challenge and promising opportunity for me to show good results at a high competitive VC industry. My main tasks will be further development and capitalization growth of portfolio companies as well as exit strategy execution.“
Alex joined iTech team in 2012, and since then he successfully managed a number of investment deals including such companies as Clickky, BitFury and TradingView.
About iTech Capital
Founded in 2010, iTech Capital is a venture capital firm focused on growth investments in digital economy businesses. iTech’s pioneer fund, iTech Fund I, LP (“Fund I”) was established in 2011 and is comprised of equity injections in IT companies in in Central and Eastern Europe, Asia and USA.

NOV 2015

iTech Capital and Greenstone Equity Partners Join Forces to Connect GCC Investors to Investments in the Digital Economy iTech Capital announced its collaboration with Greenstone Equity Partners, one of the largest independent fund placement firms in the Middle East.

iTech are raising capital for iTech Fund II, a fund that will invest in core ICT segments such as AdTech, FinTech, SAAS, Online Travel and Big Data. New LPs in Fund II will have the opportunity to invest at favorable terms. A particularly attractive attribute of iTech is their ultra-transparent internal portal that allows LPs to access all data regarding portfolio companies, co-investment opportunities and even trade portfolio positions in a secondary market within the LP network.
The team at iTech is anchored by Managing Partner Gleb Davidyuk, a seasoned professional in the private equity and venture capital industries who has worked for a range of well-established groups including Quadriga Capital, Mint Capital and Alfa Capital Partners since 1995.
"We are delighted to collaborate with iTech due to their robust reputation in delivering remarkable results for their investors. iTech's team of investment professionals are thorough and knowledgeable, with over 50 years of cumulative investment experience and are passionate about creating success," said Omar Al-Gharabally, President of Greenstone Equity Partners. "Owing to the Middle Eastern investor mentality, venture capital investment has become more and more mainstream over the last decade and with this relationship we are confident that we are introducing solid investment opportunities to investors across the region."
"The MENA region has important sources of capital flows and wealth accumulation, and with increased liquidity, local and international investors consider venture capital and all of its sub-sets to be a core part of their investment portfolios," said Gleb Davidyuk, Managing Partner of iTech. "With Greenstone Equity Partners' thorough market knowledge and strong relationships, we believe that we can establish a strong footprint in this region and develop new long-term relationships," he added.

AdExchangeTM is the biggest platform for mobile adver- tising offers in Eastern Europe.

Advantages of Clickky Mobile AdExchangeTM:

• fast integration;

• no technical restrictions;

• Platform works with traffic and offers from all over the world;

• customize ads for an application access to 5000+ offers.

All players of the mobile advertising market can take the full advantage of the new solution.

App developers will get access to 5000+ campaigns at once. Server to Server Integration with Clickky Mobile AdExchangeTM enables to choose the format of advertis- ing and gives an opportunity to fully manage advertising сampaigns. A very important feature that will appeal to developers is the ability to customize the advertising - the creation of ads in a convenient format for a particu- lar application.

Mobile Advertising Networks and agencies gain access to hundreds of traffic sources for campaigns through the export of all offers to the Clickky server.

Also, Ad Networks will be able to maximize their service by add- ing 5000+ offers to their database.

Affiliates will gain access to 5000+ campaigns that allows to find offers that are most suitable for their traffic.
Thanks to Clickky technical support service you can easily inte- grate with Clickky Mobile AdExchangeTM.

Clickky Mobile AdExchangeTM is already working with partners from 30 countries on all continents. At the moment, we provide more than 5,000 active offers, and their number is constantly growing.

“Clickky Mobile AdExchangeTM is a fresh approach to work pro- cess in mobile advertising and the fastest-growing Ad Exchange at the moment,” commented CRO Clickky Valentin Bondarchuk. “In the nearest future we plan to become the largest platform for mobile advertising offers not only in Eastern Europe but also in the world.”

SEP 2015

iTech Capital General Counsel is on GC Powerlist: Russia General Counsel of iTech Capital Bronislava Starovoitova was included in GC Powerlist: Russia composed by The Legal 500.
The GC Powerlist is the latest publication from The Legal 500, turning its attention to the in-house function, and recognising those corporate counsel who are driving the legal business forward.

The latest edition is the GC Powerlist: Russia, which identifies an array of the most influential and innovative in-house counsel working in the region.
Read more: http://www.legal500.com/assets/pages/cc100/2015/nominate_russia.html

JUL 2015

Aviasales launched a new service to check reliability of ticketing agencies Aviasales and Group-IB launched a new useful service nastoyaschiybilet.rf. On the site you can check the reliability of the agency that offers you to purchase tickets, as well as learn how to identify scams and what to do if you bought a fake ticket.

JUL 2015

Realweb starts cooperation with the platform Between Digital Realweb starts cooperation with the platform Between within programmatic direct. The company has developed special functional Between Premarket, which gives access to premium inventory programmatic model DEAL-ID.

JUL 2015

iTech Capital invests US$3 million in TradingView The fund has invested US$3 min in TradingView, a growing social FinTech platform that unites traders and investors from around the world.

16 July 2015, London – iTech Capital, a Europe-based private equity (PE) fund with a focus on the global digital market, has invested US$3 million in TradingView, a growing social FinTech platform that unites traders and investors from around the world.

iTech Capital, who will take a minority stake in TradingView, led the Series A round, which amounted to US$3.6 million alongside other seed investors and angels. TradingView provides a next-gen online platform where thousands of amateur and professional investors and traders share insights and ideas in real-time, free of charge. The site currently features over 500,000 monthly active users from 100 countries, and since launching in 2012, has experienced 10 percent month-on-month organic growth in unique users.

iTech Capital’s Managing Partner, Gleb Davidyuk and Portfolio Manager, Alex Telnov will both join the TradingView Board as executive directors. Along with the management team, their focus will be to identify and execute on future growth opportunities, enhance marketing efforts and build a corporate culture.

In addition to its burgeoning trading community, TradingView produces powerful financial charts with data that are used by over 4,000 financial portals and websites such as Investopedia, InstaForex, DailyFX and more. As a result, five and a half million monthly unique visitors are engaged with the TradingView brand through partner platforms. This round of investment will allow TradingView to develop and launch new services, including localisation, as well as expanding their sales and marketing efforts to enhance customer acquisition activities and implement new data feeds.

Gleb Davidyuk, Managing Partner of iTech Capital, said:

“TradingView is a unique player in the FinTech sector with a powerful mix of user generated charts and investment insights from its community, which helps its large user base to make informative investment decisions. Since its inception, the business model has successfully demonstrated continuous monthly growth in user acquisition and revenues. With the capital and experience provided by iTech Capital, we believe that TradingView can capitalise on the significant opportunity.”

Stan Bokov, co-founder and COO of TradingView, said:

“TradingView is doing in the financial industry what the first iPhone did to old phones. If you are a trader or investor, you’ll just ‘get it’. It’s a completely new way to visualise financial data and analyse it. It doesn’t matter if you are on a phone, tablet, PC, Mac or any other device - it’ll just work.

The platform reinvents investors’ user experience and co-operation - you are never alone with the markets. The additional funding from iTech Capital and their expertise on our Board will help us with business development, marketing and further expansion into new markets.”

JUL 2015

Clickky has presented its new mobile advertising agency Mobilimes Clickky has presented its new mobile advertising agency Mobilimes at Pocket Gamer Connects in San Francisco.

Pocket Gamer Connects is one of the leading events in the mobile world, calling together up to 1,500 of the global mobile games industry’s top professionals. This year San Francisco hosted PGC for the first time, and the event has satisfied all expectations.

JUL 2015

TradingView adds new chart feature “GO TO DATE” TradingView added a new feature that allows you to jump to a particular bar by means of “Go to Date” dialogue: http://blog.tradingview.com/?p=1187

JUL 2015

BitFury raised over $64,000 to help the victims of the floods in Georgia BitFury Group and Georgian Co-Investment Fund raised over $64,000 in Bitcoins during the fundraising campaign aimed to help the victims of the recent devastating floods in Tbilisi, Georgia.

JUL 2015

BitFury Secures $20 Million in Funding from iTech Capital and other investors Leading Bitcoin Blockchain Infrastructure provider triples market share to solidify lead.

SAN FRANCISCO–June 9, 2015– BitFury Group, the leading Bitcoin Blockchain infrastructure provider and transaction processing company, today announced it has secured $20 million in funding. Investors participating in the round include DRW Venture Capital, iTech Capital and the Georgian Co-Investment Fund.

Don Wilson, Founder of DRW Venture Capital, commented on the deal: “DRW's investment in BitFury is an acknowledgment of the impressive work Valery Vavilov and the team has done to become a leader in the business of securing the blockchain. By supporting BitFury’s efforts in this regard, and by providing liquidity in bitcoin via its wholly owned subsidiary, Cumberland, DRW aims to facilitate the widespread adoption of the distributed ledger technology.”

Gleb Davidyuk, Managing Partner of iTech Capital, added: “We are pleased with our investment in BitFury, which has solidified its market-leading position by providing its cutting edge technologies to support Bitcoin Blockchain infrastructure. We are confident there are many growth opportunities with Bitcoin technologies and we believe that Bitfury is well-positioned for further expansion.“

The proceeds will support BitFury’s accelerating growth and its technology and business expansion. The company has recently rolled out its market-leading, energy-efficient 28 nm chip, as well as acquired Allied Control, an award-winning immersion cooling technology startup. In addition, BitFury announced plans to expand further in the Republic of Georgia by building a Techno Park to host its new 100 MW data center.

Valery Vavilov, CEO of BitFury said: “Today, we are excited to announce we have secured a funding round of $20 million. The success of yet another funding round validates our business strategy and brings us closer to our ambitious goals.”

According to the independent market analysis [by Organofcorti] BitFury has recently tripled its market share and has been continuously adding significant amounts of computing power to the Bitcoin network. According to the same source, BitFury now processes more blocks than all of the private entities combined.

iTech Capital, a Europe-based Venture Capital fund with a focus on the global digital market, today announces a US$2 million investment for a minority stake in Clickky, a global mobile app marketing platform.

Clickky is a one-stop mobile app marketing platform which uses in-house proprietary technology to offer user acquisition, traffic monetisation and performance analysis. The platform boasts its own affiliate and offerwall advertising network with more than 10,000 traffic partners, DMP and media-buying technologies. Clickky runs campaigns for clients on multiple traffic sources to reach the whole mobile ecosystem, using in-house targeting and optimisation capabilities.

The investment by iTech Capital will support Clickky in its expansion into the United States, South-East Asia and emerging markets, as well as the launch of new analytics and media buying features and products. Clickky also aims to launch and expand globally its new project, mobile advertising sales agency, MobiLimes, to give app developers and brands the ability to reach their goals by using Clickky’s technology and MobiLimes experienced account and media planning teams. Gleb Davidyuk, Managing Partner of iTech Capital will be joining the Clickky Board of Directors.

Vadim Rogovskiy, founder and CEO of Clickky, said: “With the help of additional resources provided by iTech Capital, we will be able to speed up and improve the implementation of our product and marketing plans as the market for mobile advertising shifts so quickly that we need to be able to adapt accordingly and move fast.”

Clickky pioneered the market by being the first platform to provide clients with a Cost per Engagement (CPE) for non-incentivised users, optimising their campaigns to reach relevant audiences in real time.

Gleb Davidyuk, Managing Partner of iTech Capital, said: “The mobile advertising market is rapidly expanding and in 2016, revenues are set to exceed US$100 billion. Clickky is has a huge amount of potential in this industry thanks to a talented management team, as well as a very solid reputation with their customers and peers.”

“Clickky’s team has an impressive amount of technical expertise, showcased in the innovation they are able provide clients in targeting high quality traffic. Along with their continued investment into marketing and their global push, iTech Capital is confident Clickky will continue to grow and become a market leader in the near future.”

MAR 2015

Aviasales launched new paid notification system Aviasales launched paid notification system for customers who are interested in business class tickets.

Subscription costs is RUR 169 per month, and the application is now available in iTunes. Subscription allows to check possible changes in ticket prices 4 times a day and receive notifications.

The service became the first paid upgrade for Aviasales mobile application. In addition, it is possible to use the notification system as an advertising platform to gain additional income, for example, by adding the list of extra services associated directly with the flights or with some specific destination

Janis Dzenis, the PR-manager in Aviasales, said:

“You need to understand that it’s not an easy task to find a cheap business class ticket. The search history is enough to track prices for economy class tickets. For business class tickets, we have developed a special robot, that checks four times a day the tickets you’re interested in. If the price changes, you will be told”.

However, it’s too early to estimate the expected income from this service immediately after the launch. For Aviasales it’s the first attempt of monetizing mobile apps.

FEB 2015

iTech Capital continues to expand the investment team New investment director joined iTech Capital team

Petr Polyakov takes up duties as Investment Director at iTech Capital and he will responsible for ad tech sector strategy in iTech portfolio including such projects as SeoPult, RealWeb and iContext.

Prior to joining iTech he spent 7 years in Corporate Finance department of Deloitte in Moscow and Alma-Ata focusing on transactions in TMT industry. In 2013-2014 Petr led Deloitte transaction support practice in Kazakhstan and Central Asia. In 2003-2007 Petr worked in Renova, one of the largest Russian private investment groups. Petr graduated from the Moscow State University with Degree in Economics. He also holds CFA charter.

Gift of Life charity foundation launched mobile app The application was supported by Aviasales as a part of "Gift of Life" digital strategy in cooperation with iTech Capital and its portfolio companies

From January, 13 the mobile application is available for smartphones on iOS and Android.

iTech Capital Investment Manager Nikolay Davydov has left the team iTech Capital Investment Manager Nikolay Davydov has decided to set up his own investment and consulting company, which he will be busy with in the near future. We would like to wish him success on behalf of our entire team. Nikolay’s replacement will join us early next year

DEC 2014

iTech Capital won Deal of the Year award for Aviasales iTech Capital is awarded in the category Deal of the Year of Russian Venture Awards for the deal with Aviasales

Aviasales is a leading travel search engine for flights and hotel bookings in Russia. According to the Federal Agency of Air Transport, the Russian passenger air travel market grew by 14.2% in 2013 to more than 84.5 million fliers. Some RUB 240 billion worth of online tickets and hotel reservations were sold, and the sector’s growth is estimated at 40%, according to Data Insight.

NOV 2014

SeoPult acquires uLogin social network authorization service iTech portfolio company Pult Group made a new acquisition

SeoPult, Russia’s leading automated search engine marketing platform, has announced its acquisition of uLogin – a service that allows web user authentication through social network accounts. The company was valued at millions of dollars .

<br>
Launched in 2011, the uLogin project allows website owners to easily integrate social network authorization in their sites and attract additional visitors from popular social networks and portals.<br>
<br>
With the acquisition of uLogin, SeoPult can further improve behavior management technology developed for promoting websites in search engines. The technology is based on large volumes of information on web users and their interests.&nbsp;<br>

uLogin has been implanted into SeoPult and is now a single user data management center with UpToLike DMP, bridging gaps and providing SeoPult customers a higher return on their advertising. An audience of 21 million people and 80 million page hits are processed daily.

uLogin will remain an independent product and will continue to be developed under its own brand. “We see this as a promising deal for both parties and the market in general,” SeoPult CEO Alexey Shtarev says. “We have the expertise and technology, while uLogin can offer Big Data, highly demanded in search engine marketing. We are interested in finding and acquiring IT projects that will help SeoPult group grow and meet the most versatile demands of the online market. In turn, we can provide these services with all the assets we have at our disposal, which translates into bigger revenue and greater profitability for them.”

Founded in 2008, SeoPult Group is the largest high-tech project in the market for automated search engine and contextual advertising management solutions. The service is used by more than 400,000 websites, most of which are owned by small and medium businesses. In 2012, SeoPult raised $10 million from the iTech Capital investment fund.The company’s revenue for 2013-2014 financial year exceeded 2 billon RUR, up 19% on last year.

SeoPult aspires to give advertisers the most efficient tools by constantly improving its own services and acquiring those with similar strategies. Among the holding’s latest acquisitions is UpToLike – a social activity start-up used by more than 110,000 Russian sites.